My new routine, including supplements

I got laid off in early November, and on the positive side my diet has been WAY better, now that I'm not surrounded by all the candy and soda that was in full stock at the company I worked for.

I try to eat a big salad every day. I TRY to have this healthy 12 grain breakfast (mentioned in the last post) on a more regular basis now. And I take a good amount of supplements almost every day.

It definitely helps to keep them in a pill minder, that way I don't have to keep unscrewing bottles and I can keep track of how good I've been doing during the week. I try to take the fat-soluble vitamins (eg vitamin D) when I have some fat (eg. milk or pizza, which is not a usual thing), and then the garlic and prenatal with dinner or when I have a big salad. I try to take the antioxidants in the morning.


The supplements include:


-Vitamin D (I heard it helps you absorb 3 times more calcium!). I started taking it because I was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder, and was pleasantly surprised I had a HUGE reduction in back pain after taking vitamin D. Actually I think the one I am taking may be Vitamin D3. I got it at Costco. The pills are super tiny, like 1/2 the size of a typical vitamin E pill. They're 2000 mg and I take 1 or 2 a day. I think it also helped me quite a bit with the seasonal affective disorder.

On another note, ladies: Vitamin D has been shown to help women undergoing IVF treatment! Check out this article: http://living.health.com/2009/10/07/vitamin-d-conception/

-Prenatal Vitamin from Costco. They're these big red pills - like a liquid / gel pill. I really like these. On the downside, they make my hair grow so friggin fast I have to keep coloring it (I know, you're not supposed to color your hair but I can't help it, I may have to go childless if that's the case).

-Pycnogenol. I heard this can really help women who have endometriosis. I started taking this before it was determined that I don't have it, but it's a really good antioxidant so I keep taking it anyway. You can read the endometriosis article here by the way: http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/More-evidence-for-Pycnogenol-endometriosis-benefit and here's one more: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/64791.php

-Resveratrol, from Costco, 1 pill

-SOMETIMES I take some ACAI (a friend gave me a bottle)

-Multiple B Vitamin.

-Odorless garlic tab from Nature Made.

-CoEnzyme Q10. I don't always take these, just if I've eaten enough during the day and feel like it. I feel like I'm taking so many things I don't want to overdo it.

-Folic acid. It's a tiny little brown pill (just found one the cats chewed up, on the ground). I think it smells like fish oil. Anyway there is folic acid in the prenatal vitamins but I take an extra one of these for the hell of it.

-Vitamin C. I am on the fence about taking this, as I think it helps keep me healthy but at the same time, having an acidic environment "down there" kills sperm. So I kind of stopped taking these. I do try to drink extra milk around ovulation time because I heard it makes your body more alkaline, which is more favorable for sperm.

WHEN I'M OVULATING, I take:
- Evening oil of primrose (a really big tablet)
- Mucus relief tablets
- Fertile CM (it's pricey so I save it and only take it between about day 10 of my cycle and day 20.

I TRY to drink 2 pots of tea a day but that doesn't always happen. It does help if I make it at night in the coffee pot, let it cool down by morning and pour it into my favorite bottle (an alhambra 33.8 oz. water bottle... go figure why it's 33.08 instead of like 32 but whatever). I've heard it's not great to drink out of those bottles (because of the plastic residue... BHT? BBT? shoot I forget the proper name) but I'm praying it's still doing at least SOMETHING good.

Fertility Breakfast - 12 Grain "Cereal"

Just wanted to share this yummy breakfast I've been eating for a while now. It's 12 grain "cereal" (though it looks more like bird food than cereal) and you can get it at Whole Foods or Rainbow Foods, in the section where you scoop stuff out of bins into a plastic bag, write the item # on the twist tie, and pay by the pound. It doesn't look very glamorous but it tastes GREAT when you cook it right, has tons of fiber, and best of all, it gives me a REALLY GOOD ENERGY BUZZ that I just do not get from other breakfast foods. Particularly NOT cereal, which tends to either make me sleepy and wanna crash, or it just makes me feel hungry later.

The only downside is it takes 5 minutes to cook it and, being the most impatient eater in the whole world, sometimes that's too long for me to wait. When I'm hungry I want to eat right that very second, and you actually have to cook this for 5 minutes (I managed to overcook / burn it every time until I realized my microwave has a kitchen timer, so I can get it to beep and remind me when to take the pot off the stove!)

When it's done, it's really good.

This is how I make it.

-1/3 cup 12-grain cereal

-2/3 cup water

Bring to a boil on stove (cook for 5 minutes total).

Halfway through cooking I throw in:

-handful of fresh cranberries, cut in half (or a small handful of dried cranberries)

-a whole apple, diced

-a small handful of walnuts

-MAYBE 1/2 a banana sliced up, if I feel like it (added after removing from heat)

Then when it's all done I put it in a bowl with:

-big spoonful of brown sugar***

-2 tbsp. ground flaxseed / pumpkinseed mixture (you can get both from whole foods or rainbow foods and i grind them up in my Magic Bullet that I LOVE).

I pour about 1/2 cup of soymilk over the whole thing and mix it all up. It is sooo good!

(***NOTE: I'm making an addition to this blogpost on 1-27-12: I no longer use brown sugar and soy milk. Now I just mix my morning visalus shake into the bowl, after cooking, and it's perfect. I'll pour about 1/2 the shake in, and drink the rest because i love the shake too.)

It's really high in fiber and the pumpkin / flaxseed mixture give it a really good nutty taste. I heard from Fern Reiss' book on fertility that it's good to eat pumpkin seeds, and I really don't like the taste of raw pumpkin seeds but for some reason when I blend them up like this, they taste really good! I blend up the flaxseed (which must be ground in order to give you the beneficial effects) and pumpkin seeds in my magic bullet (that I got at Costco for $40 with a coupon... one of my best investments EVER). And I keep the stuff in a plastic container in the freezer (flaxseed goes rancid very quickly unless you refrigerate it).

Ground Pumpkinseed / flaxseed mixture, before putting it in the freezer.

It's really inexpensive to make this for breakfast and it's soooo good for you. Go try some!